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Til K CATARACT FLOURING MILL The Iniilding of the Houring mill owned by the Cataract Mill com puny was one of the pioneer enterprises of Great Kails. The idea originated with H. O. Cliowen of this city, and through his energy was carried cut. In 18!» he interested Jas. Jamison of Minneapolis with him in the enterprise and the con tract for the machinery was let to Messrs. Miliford *V Northway of Minneapolis. This was before the days of the Manitoba railroad in Montana mid every pound of machinery had to lie hauled by wagon train from Helena, over one hundred miles, or from Fort lienton, forty miles, so that to erect a first class mill in those days was no small undertaking. How well the task was performed in spite of tlie difficulties encountered is demonstra ted by the excellent quality of the flour the mill is now turning out. From year to year additions have been made to the machinery of the mill and improvements made in the system of nulling till no v the Cataract Mill com panywill guarantee to supply their cus tomer with a flour fully equal to the liest Dakota or Minnesota patents and at a considerably lower figure than eastern flour will cost laid down here. This is the only mill in Montana that does make such a guarantee for the reason that it is superior to all its competitors in equipment and in addition it is able to grind wheat far superior to that obtained by any other Montana mill Tliis last result has been attained large ly through the effort of the Cataract mill company in introducing the proper var ieties of hard wheat and in getting the farmers to sow these varieties of seed, in the spring of 1888 the Mill company shipped several cars of Scotch Fife from Dakota for seed and in the spring of |SS!> they shipped in a still larger quantity. I his seed was sold to the rancher at cost and those who were not able to pay cash for seed obtained it from the com pany by giving a note payable after har vest in cash or wleuit as the rancher pre ferred. Four years ngo soft wheat of a doubtful character was the only wheat to be found in Northern Montana, but this fall not a bushel of wheat was brought to the mill that would grade less than No. 1 iiard. Northern Montana appears to possess a soil much better adapted to raising the hard varieties of wheat than the southern portion of the state. This company buys wheat from all parts of the state hut can find none to give as good satisfaction as that raised in Northern Montana. Here providence lias certainly amply provided for the wheat grower. It lias endowed him with millions of acres of as line land as the sun ever shone upon; has blessed him with a matchless climate for grain growing as well as health; and in addition lias blessed him with a never failing home market, in this last respect perhaps the farmer here lias a greater ad vantage. His wheat, all he can raise, will lie consumed in the shape of Ilnur by the mining camps ami smelting cities right in his neighborhood. This latter fact guar antees the rancher for all time a good price for his wheat. Another great advantage our farmers enjoy is that of the high yield per acre, lu Minnesota the average viei l, taking one year with another, is about seven bushels to the acre, while our rancher in a series of years, averages twenty-live to thirty bushels to the acre, without ir rigation. This lias been the dryest season known to the oldest inhabitant here as well as in Dakota, but while the farmers of Dakota in many sections are suffering from want, on account of drouth the past season, our farmers have all done well and are contented with ttieir lot. Several the past season, owing to late sowing, secured but half a crop or less, hut in every such case the fault can easily be traced to their own neglect. Wheat should be sowed early in Northern Montana: we usually enjoy several weeks of the finest weather im aginable during February, when the soil thaws to the depth of several inches and the air is as balmy as in May. During this period is the best time to sow wheat, but it sown in April or May it will do very nicely and numerous instances can be cited where wheat lias matured when sown lute in June, but it is wise to sow «•riy. The trade of it very great area of country is enjoyed bv this mill. They send flour to all the towns north of here to the British line, east to the Milk river ▼alley, westward to Helena, and south ward to the Judith basin and Fort Magin uis, over 150 miles away; and in such de mand has their product been the past season that at no time have they had any flour stored away. The Cataract Mill Co. looks forward to a prosperous year both to the grain grower and to the miller. Though the present mill has but seventy-five barrels per day capacity, the gentlemen com posing this corporation propose to erect a large mill—150 to 200 barrels per day— as soon as the wheat production is I I I I — greater than the present mill can take c.ire of. They find that nur wheat here requires different treatment from t lint of any other hard wheat, owing to the pecu liar properties given it by our Montana soil and air and it is only by constant and careful study that the company has been able to discover the proper way t> treat the grain. Montana lias received a generous en dowment from the United States for edu cational purposes. The public lands granted for that purpose are ampl- lor the establishment of a university, an agri cultural college, a s -bool of mines and a state normal school. The rising genera tion in Montana will thus enjov tin- full est facilities for attaining a collegia!.....I ueation, which will lie free to all. I lie educational spirit is strong in Montana. It ensures that noble institutions of the highest merit will he founded BRIGHT PROSPECTS. An Interview wilh Mr. Paris Gibson Regarding Great Falls. Hon. I*i pleased to IIlw a ris Gibson. win peak of the bright prospects of tirent Falls, accorded the following interview to a Tumi ni-: reporter, who was in quest of opinions: '•I understand your company is expect ing to make large sales of Great Falls property the coming year, and that you are looking for an extraordinary growth of its population ?" I "I feel sure of this. W e are already I making large sales of lots and many of I them to the most experienced and the I shrewdest eastern capitalists. Two years I ago it was it question in the minds of some, whether our town would grow rap idly: hut it is no longer a question, now that the Montana Smelting company and the Boston iV Montana Copper eompaiiv have both located their works here, and the great dam at Black Kagle falls is to he commenced this winter and completed within nine months. The man is stupid or blind by preju dice, who can not see that this place is to become at once the centre of great activity. The truth is no part of Montana is being developed as rapidly as Great Fails and vicinity. The output of coal at Sand Coulee is 1(100 tons per day,ami within two months it will be 1,500 tons daily; t li e Belt Mountain railway will be coinple'ed next spring, and as a result, Great Falls will getan immense ore and merchandise traffic. The extern sion, also, of the Manitoba railway westward from Great Falls will add much to the confidence of investors in this place, as it will he the most, prominent point on the main line. The western shops of the Manitoba rail way are soon lo lie located here, and this alone, will add five thousand people to Great Falls. "Do you think Great Falls will become an important commercial as well as man uiacturmg center. < ertainly I do. Our town is already doing very large trade over a rich conn try 125 miles to tlie east, and as many miles to the northwest. The truth is no other town in Montana has as large and as good tributary country and it will soon become one of tlie most important dis tributing centers west of St. Paul." "Do you think the Anaconda refineries will be located here?" ; "As to that, I cannot state, but of this 1 am sure, if tlie liest location is to be se lected, they will come here." "Do you expect there will soon be lo cated at Great Falls other enterprises that will give steady employment to laboring men?" Yes; we expect that the Boston & Montana company will manufacture sheet copper aud copper wire. There will also j be built at Black Eagle falls a large and 1 well equipped flouring mill, a woolen _________________ 0 ____________ city when they undertake such a — A A M.LI.L * 1 I Æ —. .. ? mill and a foundry and machine shops. Tlie (piarries of red, brown and white sandstone that surround our town will nlso give employment to a large force of men, as this beautiful building materia! will be shipped to Helena and to all the promiuent cities on the Pacific coast, in cluding San Francisco. 1 think it no ex aggeration to state that Great Falls will give employment to more men next year than any other town in Montana, except Butte. The estimatee for the Great Falls dam show that it is to be an industrial firm confidence in the growth of our structure, which will far exceed in magnitude any work of the kind in j the northwest. 1 CASCADE COUNTY COAL FIELDS _ The Sand Coulee and Other Measures True a biiutninui Coal as Is Found in the United States " —Immense Extent of the Field Illy I>lt. (i I asp. Cascade county while it has a scant supply of timber save in the High wood mountains, is favored with a vast amount of excellent coal well distributed over the county. Coal beds have been opened on Sun river below Sun Hiver Crossing, in the Missouri river bluffs north of I I in, on Willow creek, on Hound creek, and Deep creek both above and below the mouth of Hound creek, in Sand coulee, mi licit creek and on Otter ere There i on Willow and at the tv of tlie W l III.I K l micron of creek south-east base of the northi Belt mountains, here are very much disturbed and broken up, so that it was impossible without more work to tell the extent and thick ness of this bed. ni.i.c « i:i l l Tile Deep e-leek 'l-ened if Dec| MIXI-S. bed has been IIduml creek, on both sides ■k below the mouth of Hound cast side above. From east side considerable As lif k. i„ (•client coal nf Cascade rn extremi The strata , , . . . I were slopped to , . , I .... I ... . -, not been opened to prove its nun ity nr . • 't ,NK!J ' At Sam! coulee the same coal bed has lieen traced over a large area, where it occupies a position most favorable for mining and transportation. This coal , rreck. and on tlie a tunnel on tin quantities of tin Benton and Sun Hiver and other markets. This coal lied is about six feet thick and covers considerable area as shown by the openings mad«..... it. It comes to the surface in Spanish coulee; hut has 'Vi quantity at that locality. This coal must prove useful, as it will furnish very large quantity of excellent fuel. sAMi coulee NEW »KICK St HOOU HOUSE AT «HEAT FALLS. lied ha numerous places on Sand coulee and on Cottonwood coulee for a distance of sev eral miles, Tlie bed lies nearly horizon tal and from 20 to 50 feet above the hot tom of the coulees and the railroad track, a position most favorable for mining and loading wagons and cars. been opened and worked in I he principal openings are by tunnels |n the i,argent mine, the Sand Coulee Coal company s mines, the Dean mine, tlie Humphrey and the Culberson mine, In these mines tlie coal varies in thick ness from 5 feet to 10 feet. There are some shale partings, thickest where the coal lu-d is thickest; but the shale can easily be separated in mining. quality of sand coulee coal. Some persons have called this coal a ; lignite, because it is found in a formation 1 which contains beds of lignite; but this is j ns true a bituminous coal as can be found I ou tlie continent. Like the "Block | coals" of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois aud I Missouri, so much used in smelting fur uaces w ithout coking, it contains numer ous thin layers of charcoal, which pre vent tlie coal from caking and choking f'trnace. In fnct, the Sand Coulee j ccn ' '* s made ol three varieties of : 1 co " , > " 3 et black variety with shining ! vesiuous luster, and an even or conchoidal ; fracture, which makes a first-class coke, a ! dull dry variety with little bitumen, and mineral charcoal witli very little bitu men, all mor« or less interstratifled. The bright coking coal is most abundant to wards the bottom, the dull dry coal pre vails in the upper part of the bed, and the charcoal partings iu the middle part. Saud Coulee coal is a high grade coal for domestic uses, for making steam and for smelting furnaces, either with or without cokiug. This coal lias two slate partings aud sometimes a little sulphuret of iron, which cau be separated in min * ome markets. Its use for domestic pur HASAC in CUI-ara 1 F avis ♦ ! ««AM A , T '»«i-'vr»"!" nvn,ng has given ,he coal a bad name ln P oses ' n several of our towns and its gen cral use on the Montana Central and Manitoba railroads from Butte, Montana to Grand Forks, Dak., and at the Great Fails and other reduction works, have given this coal a reputation and made a demand for it greater titan the mines now worked can supply. This coal has been used raw for sinelt ing our copper ores and pronounced an excellent fuel for that purpose. The physical properties of this coal, the numerous analyses of it, ami its use for nil purposes, fully prove that it *is an excellent fuel for domestic use, for gen erating steam and roasting ores; that the lower part will make good gas and coke, and that the middle part is a block coal suitable for use raw in smelting furnaces. The Sand Coule.* coal is hard and strong, breaks in large blocks, and makes very little dust and waste in bundling. It is a clean and popular domestic coal. FACILITIES Kill! WOHKINI.. Nearly all the coal at Sand Coulee is sufficiently high above the railroad to lie dumped directly into the cars on the track, and give ample space for shoots, screens and all necessary appliances for the cheap handling of coal. The cap of the coal is a hard, strong shale and thick beds of strong sandstone. It is impervious to water, save where cracked, and secures dry air and comfort to the miners. Little or no timbering is needed to make the mine safe. This secures cheap and healthful working and safety from fires. The upper shale parting makes a strong . , , . ' ® roof for working the lower six or seven feet of tlie lied, when desirable to work the two parts separately The bed rises sufficiently to the west to secure perfect drainage towards the railroad, as in the present tunnel, whose mouth is only a few r . , . feet from the track of the railroad. Hits (lit* of the lied to the east will not only give a good drainage to the mine but also enable the coal cars to run out by their own weight, or with very little assistance. Very few coal mines are so favorably 1<> cat-ed for economical working and cheap transportation to market, iielt cheek coal minks. j ee llnd | i( . lt creekf ngree so perfectly in position, thickness and character of the of tlie «g. Sand coulee lias the advantages of posi tion for loading cars, and being in tlie midst of the best agricultural region on the upper Missouri,and Belt creek has the advantages of an abundance of water ,nd „ j ar „ e 8Uliplv of timber in thp llll1llr . nnt vein, and in quantity and quality lie coals, and facilities of work urge supply of timber in the adjacent Highwood mountains. C0A, ' ON Missouri and sun hivers. There are two coal beds in the bluffs i on the south side of Sun river, two miles below the crossing. One of these beds is four feet thick and of medium quality. The other bed is thiu and would not pin 1 for working while labor and coal eom j maud present prices. These beds are I nearly horizontal and sufficiently high to | be worked with ease, I A bed of coal similar to that on Sun with the horizontal position of the rocks : between Sun river and the Missouri indi ! cate the continuation of these beds of ; coal in the bench lands between those ! rivers, QUANTITV OF COAL IN CASCADE. The coal beds at Belt creek, in Sand coulee and on Deep creek will yield O AAA AAA * __ river crops ont in the bluffs of the Mis souri below Llm. It also comes to sur face in a coulee between Sun river and the Missouri. These facts iu connection A coal bed also crops out in the bluffs on the northeast side of Sun river in places for several miles. This coal bed doubtless underlies a large area in the bench lands to the north and east. muddy cheek coal. One or two beds of coal similar to those on Sun river have been opened in several places on Muddy creek in the northern part of the county. These beds will lie useful to supply the local de mand for domestic uses. 6,000,000 tons per square mile, as the area underlaid by this coal at each of these locations has not been determined, Tlie same coal lied found on Deep creek ami at Sand coulee lias been opened in several places on Belt creek at Belt city. Tlie position of the coal lied is nearly horizontal and suffi ciently above the bottom .lands to be mined and put in cars and wagons at very low rates, nearly ns above described un der Sand coulee coal. The quantity and quality of tlie coal on Belt creek, is the same ns that describ ed at Sand coulee. In fact it seldom hap pens that tlie coals at two localities on the same bed so far apart as Sand cou it is impossible to tell how many square miles xvithin it: but it is safe to say they cover an average of six square miles at each of these localities and pro. balily many more, and will furnish 36,000, 000 tons of marketable coal or a thousand tons per diem for the next hundred years. By tlie time these coals are ex hausted some better mode of warming the cold regions and lighting tlie dark hours will he discovered. Tlie amount of coal on Willow creek, on Spanish coulee, on Sun river, on Missouri river, and on < »tter creek can not even be con jectured from tlie small amount of work done at those localities. But enough is known to say these localities will furn ish all needed supplies for domestic uses, and that Deep creek, Sand coulee and Belt creek mines can furnish an abund ant supply for all manufacturing, mining and transportation purposes. THE VAI.IE OK C ASCADE COAI.S. The Case »de coal mines are situated in the midst of a vast prairie country, which is rapidly filling up with a teeming and industrious population, whose homes must he warmed and lighted, whose factories, whose railroad trains, whose machinery of all kinds must lie propelled by coal. These mines are seventy miles from the nearest timber on the west, one hundred and seventy miles from tlie Dominion and much further from available timber on the north. Six hundred miles from the nearest accessible borders of timber in Minnesota, and with very little timber and none to spare even to the Gulf of Mexico on the south. And this is in the midst of a great building, manufacturing and mining population, and vast systems of railroads, which will soon exhaust all available timber and be wirdly depen dent upon our coal beds for fuel! And all this present and prospective growth of populations and industries under the 47tli parallel of north latitude, where we sometimes feel tlie frozen -breath of tlie Polar bear ! These mines, too, nre near tlie junction of Sun river and the Missouri and Great Falls, the most beautiful and fertile region of the northwest, and destined to become aa populous as the valley of the Hudson. Those who doubt our growth should study the history of Chicago, St. Paul and Denver. There are ten times tlie reasons why Great Fulls should become a great city than there.ever was why Denver should become the queen city of Colora do. Montana is tlie greatest mining country in tlie world, and its mines are as yet scarcely prospected. Our agricultu ral resources are limited only by the amount of water, ami that is increasing every year and will increase by natural laws a# cultivation progresses. Tlie Cascade is tlie best and most avail able coal for tlie present and prospective demands of this growing regipu. These coals will play their full part in warming the cities of the plains and the cities of mountains, in running tlie inachiuery and in heating the furnaces of a thousand mines, and in running the trains of two great systems of transcontinental and meridian railroads. No coal, as we have shown, is better adapted to supply the varied wants of such a population. Its varied properties, its cheap mining and its available means of transportation, and the present and prospective demaud make this one ot tlie most valuable coal regions in the Great West. G it eat Falls is the first large city on tbe Missouri. There is something in spiring in being at the head of that long chain of cities, which includes Omaha, St. Joseph, and Kansas City, not to speak of the flourishing towns which line the banks of tlie great river and its tribu taries. Great Falls will do credit to the Missouri. In natural 'advantages she is not excelled by any city on the mighty waterway. Many people wish they had gene to Chicago when it was young. Others wish they had removed to St. Paul or Minneapolis in early days when land was cheap. Let all who are in quest of a youug city whose manifest destiny is to be prosperous and great, come to Great Falls. They will not be disappointed. It is noteworthy that strong finan cial institutions are turning their at tention to Great Falls and the sur rounding country. President Man age of the Northwestern Guaranty Loan company of Minneapolis was so impressed with the growth of Great Falls that he established an agency here and authorized loans to be made freely. The Jarvis-Conklin Mort gage Trust company has likewise an agency here, which is cultivating business rapidly. These companies discern that Great Falls real estate and Cascade county ranches form good security for loans and that the borrowers are able and willing to pay reasonable interest.